in the theory of value and prices.
87
isfaction by similar gestures, language, facial expression, and gen-eral conduct we speak of their satisfaction as very much the same.What however this may mean in the “ noumenal ” world is a mys-tery. If on the other hand differences of age, sex, temperament, etc.enter, comparison becomes relatively difficult and inappropriate.Very little could be meant by comparing the desire of a Fuegian fora shell-fish with that of a college conchologist for the same objectand surely nothing is meant by comparing the desires of the shellfishitself with that of either of its tormentors.
§ 3.
When statistics becomes a developed science it may be that thewealth of one age or country will be compared with that of anotheras “ gain ” not money value. If the annual commercial product ofthe U. S. was in 1880 $9,000,000,000* and by increased facilities forproduction prices are lowered so much that the product in 1890 isonly valued at (say) $8,000,000,000 it proves a gain not a loss. Thecountry would be the richest possible when all things were as plenti-ful as water, bore no price, and had a total valuation of zero. Nowmoney value simply measures utility by a marginal standard whichis constantly changing. Statistical comparison must always be roughbut it can be better than that. The statistician might begin withthose.utilities in which men are most alike—food utilities—and thosedisutilities in which they are most alike—as the disutilities of de-finite sorts of manual labor. By these standards he could measureand correct the money standard) and if the utility curves for vari-ous classes of articles were constructed he could make rough sta-tistics of total utility, total disutility, gain, and utility-value whichwould have considerable meaning. Men are much alike in their di-gestion and fatigue. If a food or a labor standard is established itcan be easily applied to the utilities in regard to whioh men areunlike as of clothes, houses, furniture, books, works of art, etc.
§ 4 .
These inquiries however do not belong here. Let us instead of add-ing to the meaning of utility do the very opposite and strip it of allattributes unessential to our purpose of determining objective prices